Samurai-Sword Maker May Cool Nuclear Revival 317
NobleSavage sends a story from Bloomberg about Japan Steel Works Ltd., a company that still makes Samurai swords, and how it may control the fate of the global nuclear-energy renaissance. "There stands the only plant in the world, a survivor of Allied bombing in World War II, capable of producing the central part of a nuclear reactor's containment vessel in a single piece, reducing the risk of a radiation leak. Utilities that won't need the equipment for years are making $100 million down payments now on components Japan Steel makes from 600-ton ingots. Each year the Tokyo-based company can turn out just four of the steel forgings that contain the radioactivity in a nuclear reactor. Even after it doubles capacity in the next two years, there won't be enough production to meet building plans."
Hm (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hm (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe depleted uranium.
Re:Hm (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Hm (Score:5, Funny)
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But if you have 4 arms, then you'll have twice as much strength to heft the sword, so you will get tired at an equal rate as if the sword was a normal weight with only two arms. So by making you sprout those extra arms, the sword solves its own problems!
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Depends on the velocity... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hm (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hm (Score:5, Informative)
Depleted Uranium == Normal Uranium (Score:3, Informative)
Furthermore, "regular" Uranium and "depleted" Uranium and "enriched" Uranium have nothing to do with it being Uranium or not. It only has to do with Uranium-235 abundance. Regular just has under 1% of the U-235 and
Not an unexpected fact considering... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Thanks, I enjoyed that.
Re:Hm (Score:5, Informative)
That's really reassuring.
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Bow down and worship.
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Re:Hm (Score:5, Funny)
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Now THAT would definitely be over 9000....
Re:Hm (Score:4, Funny)
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So, yes, a uranium sword would be pretty sweet, but you wouldn't be able to wield it very well or, if you could, it would get all dinged up the first time you used it.
Re:Hm (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re: You sig (Score:2)
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It cause a latch up event in my stateful parser.
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sounds like a way to re-start (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:sounds like a way to re-start (Score:4, Insightful)
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I doubt it would be profitable for quite some time.
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No, but I can buy 10,000 experience points real cheap on ebay.
Re:sounds like a way to re-start (Score:4, Interesting)
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http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4249332.html [popularmechanics.com]
(and I did hesitate to link to Popular Mechanics, as they are a bit rah rah patriotic for this here, but I doubt very much that they are outright lying)
Change the design (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Change the design (Score:5, Informative)
The certification process probably makes the design safer, but it also disincentives innovation in ways that would horrify someone used to the rapid pace of consumer electronics.
On the other hand, the kind of reliability standards we see on consumer electronics would horrify me if they ever happened be applied to a nuclear facility or an airplane.
Ok, so let China produce them (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Change the design (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not in my back yard!!
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(Though a bit late for a Holocaust cloak, one would think, and perhaps the component is a little large for a wheelbarrow)
Where to build the reactor? (Score:2)
Re:sounds like a way to re-start (Score:5, Insightful)
How? We have no industrial base anymore. It's the "information age", we're a "service economy", remember? Actually making steel is, like, so 1970s.
U.S. Steel [wikipedia.org] now makes about as much steel now as it did in 1902. The once-mighty Bethlehem Steel [wikipedia.org]? Gone. National Steel [wikipedia.org]? Kaput.
We traded our ability to make stuff, for our ability to by cheap imports at Wal*Mart.
Re:sounds like a way to re-start (Score:5, Insightful)
It really doesn't matter where cheap steel is coming from; it isn't particularly profitable to make, and it is the easiest capacity to add, so why should anybody be surprised that American companies aren't trying to compete with cheaper foreign labor for the title of biggest steel company?
All makes perfect sense, until (Score:5, Insightful)
Until you actually read the article and see that your cheap foreign labour is in Japan? Japan hasn't been cheap in decades.
Oh and where are those Intel chips actually produced?
Read up on Henry Ford and exactly why he allowed his factory workers special loans to buy the cars they produced. If a rabid capatalist understood, why don't you?
Re:All makes perfect sense, until (Score:5, Insightful)
(and Alcoa and Intel make stuff all over the world; this doesn't change the fact that they have significant production operations in the United States)
I'm wasn't responding to the lamentation that the U.S. is apparently incapable of producing one of these giant forgings, I was responding to the ridiculous idea that all the economic activity of whatever golden age of American industry up and disappeared. It didn't disappear, it shifted to other activity, and when you count things up, there is more industry here than there was 25 or 50 years ago. So yes, as a percentage of our overall economy, heavy industry has dropped, but the economy has grown so much that the actual amount of heavy industry has increased, and instead of just paying people to work in steel mills, we can pay them to do silly things like program computers.
And the U.S. is actually a pretty popular place to do heavy industry. We are politically stable, have cheap, available energy(Coal!) and a good portion of the workforce is highly skilled. We certainly don't have a monopoly on any of those things, but it's hard to argue that we should.
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The biggest problem with US steel is, appropriately U.S Steel [wikipedia.org]. If we could get some more modern , high-tech, and agile steel producers we could restart the whole industry here. But it's all unions and subsidies and dinosaurs right now, and there is no sign of that changing any time soon.
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4 per year (Score:2)
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The 5 year gap is important because during that 5 years, they'd expect to be able to increase capacity while other forgers would still be getting started.
However, the problem is China and its vast natural resources. Japan, unfortunately doesn't have the natural resources to do this cheaply fo
Re:4 per year (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:4 per year (Score:5, Insightful)
The Japanese firms for steel have a really good reputation for forging some of the best parts in the world. Even the Spaniards and Americans can not produce such quality steel.
I don't think I would want to be near a Chinese forged reactor core any time in my life. QC does not seem to be their strong point.
Re:4 per year (Score:5, Funny)
>any time in my life. QC does not seem to be their strong point.
On the plus side, it is very likely to come coated in lead.
That's good in this case, right?
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If they are genuine samurai swords, they can't be exported
That is incorrect. Nihonto, swords MADE in Japan can be exported following specific procedures as outlined HERE [nihontokanjipages.com]. It is more difficult, I've found, to IMPORT a sword into Japan. This is especially true if you are importing Nihonto.
The "practically worthless" swords, from a Japanese perspective, would be anything NOT made in Japan. Most of the cheap wallhangers that you see out there in the marketplace are from China, believe it or not.
For the execs of the ordering countries (Score:2, Flamebait)
Japan, WWII, allied bombing, and nukes (Score:5, Insightful)
+1 Ironic
Re:Japan, WWII, allied bombing, and nukes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Japan, WWII, allied bombing, and nukes (Score:5, Interesting)
May be a stupid question... (Score:5, Insightful)
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It also says companies are making $100 million down payments...
Something tells me that this will rapidly develop into a non-story from its current status as an advertisement for the solicitation of venture capital.
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Not to say that a f
That's nothing (Score:4, Funny)
Candu (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Candu (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Candu (Score:5, Informative)
And the reason why the CANDU was designed was because it runs on natural, unenriched uranium. It had nothing to do with the design of the pressure vessel. When the first CANDU's were being built, the US was still manufacturing PWR pressure vessels and there was no problem in that area.
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Re:Candu (Score:4, Interesting)
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There are 380 (or so, depending on model) pressure tubes (6" diameter?) made of Zirconium/Niobium Alloy that will withstand the 13 MPa and contain 12 (again, or so) fuel bundles that can b
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old article (Score:4, Informative)
Re:old article (Score:5, Informative)
The only one for sure? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:The only one for sure? (Score:4, Informative)
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As others have said, the USA is a place of ideas. Intellectual property and services are our business. It is just a shame that it won't last forever. We are now in a globa
A touch sensationalist (Score:3, Insightful)
I think someone will be on top of this problem when the money is there.
Aerospace plants are one thing.... (Score:3, Interesting)
A heavy steel forging operation, OTOH, would face opposition because of the smokestack emissions, and the ingrained idea that we don't need workers who actually MAKE anything anymore, when we can base our entire economy on shuffling money around and suing each other.
Slightly sensationalist summary I feel (Score:5, Informative)
New nuclear build is not going to grind to a halt because this plant can't keep up.
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the current designs. Nobody's looking into them for development because the current designs are "good enough"
which may make it a GOOD thing. If there's insufficient parts for the PWR design, perhaps they'll consider
a pebble bed design instead.
Re:Slightly sensationalist summary I feel (Score:4, Insightful)
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The Russians also had Chernobyl. No offense, but I'm not in favor of following Russian examples in nuclear power without *serious* rechecking.
fission is a bad idea anyway (Score:2, Insightful)
Nuclear fission is a poor solution anyway. Inherent safety problems, limited fuel supply (on the order of a century or two at most, perhaps much less), security concerns (both weapons technology proliferation and terrorist targeting concerns), unsolved waste disposal problems - the only reason this gets the support it does is because the military-industrial complex loves nuclear technologies, and some technical types who grew up on science fiction have a romantic attachment to Harassing the Power of the Ato
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But (Score:2, Funny)
Nice, but how does it compare (Score:3, Funny)
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Doesn't add up (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, the forging is described as a cylinder, which leaves the top and bottom of the pressure vessel. How do you weld 30 cm thick steel? ISTR reading about submarine construction (which use a pressure hull maybe a few cm thick) where welding the hull sections had to take place at night because daytime operations would overload the local power grid. These vessels would be even more difficult to weld correctly.
REACTOR vessel vs. CONTAINMENT vessel (Score:5, Informative)
A reactor vessel is a large-room-sized steel vessel, that holds the fuel and steam transfer pipes and so forth and is subjected to huge internal pressures in normal operation.
A containment vessel is the building-sized concrete structure that gives many reactors buildings their impressive dome shape. It is only important in the case of an accident, when it might be subjected to pressures on the order of an atmosphere or so. It is intended to hold in or contain any radioactive materials released after an accident has occurred.
Interestingly enough, in light of his demonization by anti-nuclear factions, it was Edward Teller who was largely responsible for insisting on containment vessels, a nice simple brute-force protection measure.
Every reactor has a reactor vessel, but not all reactors have containment vessels. Some reactors, such as Chernobyl, and, in the United States, GE boiling-water reactors such as the one in Plymouth, Massachusetts have very ordinary-looking block-like buildings rather than containment domes. These reactors are designed to "suppress" pressure in an accident rather than "contain" it, by the use of engineered mechanisms that open valves at the right time and direct steam through big tanks of water, cooling it down and condensing it.
they're not building the containment vessels (Score:3, Funny)
maybe the japanese are trying to NUKE THE WHALES?
first fake scientific research, now this?
will the japanese stop at nothing to satisfy their insatiable whale flesh thirst?
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Background info (Score:3, Interesting)
http://ameblo.jp/machizukuri-engineer/entry-10070632943.html [ameblo.jp]
An older example of the swords they make (from the Russo-Japanese war):
http://www.e-sword.jp/sale/0650/0650_1006syousai.htm [e-sword.jp]
The company also uses sword-making as a source of research that they apply to other field's of forging
http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110001457129/ [nii.ac.jp]
Japan Steel Works a sword maker (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean seriously, Slashdot, isn't this story cool enough without adding misleading sensationalist crap onto it?
Silly article (Score:2)
Forging the reactor vessel midsection in one piece at this factory is not all that much better.
More on pressure vessels (Score:5, Informative)
Nuclear reactor pressure vessels are a real problem. Most of the larger ones are in fact built up from welded sections. This isn't an easy welding job, and inspection of welds is a big headache. Several Japanese nuclear plants have had problems with cracks in pressure vessel welds, [jnes.go.jp] although in internal reactor components welded to the shell, not the shell itself. So making the pressure vessel and its internal support structures from one big forging makes a better product.
The environment of a reactor pressure vessel is tough. First, there's "embrittlement". Neutrons are constantly blasting apart the atoms in the pressure vessel, and over a period of years, this structural damage adds up. Then there's corrosion. There have been major corrosion problems requiring reactor shutdowns from carbon dioxide and boric acid corrosion inside the pressure vessel. Remember, this is a steam pressure vessel; at steam temperatures and pressures, minor corrosive effects at room temperature become big problems.
High quality welding of thick steel sections is a tough problem. Many approaches have been tried. The general idea is to make a V-shaped notch and fill it in during the welding process. Doing this in a way that's no weaker than the surrounding material is hard. Electric arc welding under an inert gas is the usual approach. Electron beam welding and laser welding have been tried. Then there's the problem of approach angle - welding on a vertical surface is not easy. Quality control requires X-rays, ultrasonic tests, and regulators that aren't corrupt.
So there's much to be said for building the pressure vessel as one big forging. Of course, then there's the problem of delivering a 550-ton object to the job site. There are companies that can do that [diamondheavyhaul.com], if you can find them a clear path [hankstruckpictures.com] from a seaport.
Sword making technology is relevant to the making of big forgings. Swords are built-up forgings. This is unusual in modern metalworking; most modern forged objects, like tools, are banged out in one piece by equipment much larger than the thing being manufactured. Big pressure vessels are built-up forgings; the scale requires it. In Japan, it's considered a good doctoral thesis in metallurgy to improve on sword making technology. So smart people are still thinking about the technology of built-up forgings. Nobody else bothers much.
Here's a US NRC fact sheet. [nrc.gov] on pressure vessels, and a similar European document. [euronuclear.org]
Re:More on pressure vessels (Score:4, Interesting)
If I may pick a nit here, if I understand this right, on average a weld will be stronger than the surrounding metal, the difficulty lies in being certain that that's the case for all of your welds. The problem isn't getting the strength up, but getting the variation down -- and as you point out earlier, non-destructive inspection of welds is a tough problem.
This is the reason that aircraft are still assembled using bolts and rivets -- in theory you could make a lighter aircraft using welds, but there isn't any way to be certain that any particular weld was done right, so we usually stick with a slightly inferior, but more dependable way of doing it.
(Or at least that was the case some years back... it would seem like there must be some way of cracking this problem.)
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But this has several things going for it.
Counterfeits are not likely (I mean at 4/year it's going to be difficult to slip one into the chain)
Clones are not viable: Still expensive to produce, no likely buyers (tried and true only "for teh Win!")
Even if someone considered using a clone, all the world's NRCs would require destructive testing of at least one maybe two or three units before vetting them and approving for use.
The Chinese rip off all sorts of stuff, but they're not stupid. They can't compet
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